Philip Kerr - Field Grey

'However,' I said, weightily, 'the Soviet authorities are not known for the efficiency of their record keeping. I know, I was a prisoner myself. When our men are repatriated it's the German Red Cross and not the Russians who establish who is actually being released. For this reason we're in the process of compiling our own records of who is still missing. And while this may not seem like the best moment to be asking questions like this, I wonder if I might take a few details of the loved one still missing.' I smiled sadly at the pastor. 'Your nephew, is it?'

'Yes,' he said and repeated the missing man's name, rank and serial number; and the details of his war service.

I noted these down, conscientiously. 'I won't take up too much of your time,' I said. 'Do you have any personal documentation? A pay book, perhaps? Not every soldier kept his pay book on him like he was supposed to. A lot left them at home for safe keeping, so that their wives could claim the money. I know I did. Or perhaps a military service record book. A Party card. That kind of thing.'

Frau Kettenacher was already opening a brown leather bag that was the size and shape of a small coracle. 'My Ricky was a good boy,' she said in a strong Saxon accent. 'He wouldn't ever have disobeyed the rules about carrying his pay book.' She took out a manila envelope and handed it to me. 'But you'll find everything else in here. His National Socialist Party Personal Identity Card. His SA Identity Card. His Craftsman Guild Certificate. His ID for Commercial Travellers – he trained to be a metalworker, see? And then became a travelling salesman selling the things he used to make. His German State Travel Passport. That was for the time he went to Italy on business. His Bombing Victim's Pass – Ricky's apartment in Kassel was bombed, you know. And his wife was killed. A lovely girl, she was. And his Military Service Pass Book.'

I tried to contain my excitement. The old lady was giving me everything that could have identified the real Richard Kettenacher. Several of the documents contained not just photographs but personal signatures, blood-types, details of medical examinations, his size of gas-mask, helmet, cap and boots, a record of wounds and serious illnesses, and military decorations.

'The inspector here will issue you with a receipt for these documents,' I said. 'And he'll make sure that they're returned safely to you.'

'I don't care about them,' she said. 'All I care about is having my Ricky returned safely to me.'

'God willing, yes,' I said, pocketing the missing man's life history.

As soon as Moeller had written a receipt we left the pastor and the old lady alone and walked back to the car.

'Well?' asked Vigee.

I nodded. 'I got everything.' I brandished the old lady's envelope. 'Everything. Kettenacher's double couldn't get past this lot. That's the great thing about Nazi documentation. For one thing there was so bloody much of it. And for another, it's virtually impossible to contradict.'

'Let's hope it's not the real one,' said Vigee. 'If he was blind, then perhaps he couldn't see his mother. And perhaps her eyes are not so good and she couldn't see him.' He looked through the documents. 'Let us hope you're right about this. I don't like disappointments.'

The following morning I remained at the pension in Gottingen while Vigee and some of the others went to arrest the man posing as Kettenacher. I asked if I might be allowed to go to church but Grottsch said that Vigee had given orders that we should remain indoors and await his return. He said, 'I hope it's him so that we can go back to Hannover. I really don't like Gottingen any more.'

'Why? It's a nice enough little town.'

'Too many memories,' said Grottsch. 'I went to university here. My wife, too.'

'I didn't know you were married.'

'She was killed in an air raid,' he said. 'October 1944.'

'Sorry.'

'And you? Were you married before?'

'Yes. She died, too. But much later on. In 1949. We had a small hotel, in Dachau.'

He nodded. 'Dachau is very lovely,' said Grottsch. 'Well, it was, before the war.'

For a moment we shared a silent memory of a Germany that was gone and, probably, would never be again. Not for us anyway. And certainly not for our poor wives. Conversations in Germany were often like this: people would just stop in the middle of a sentence and remember a place that was gone or someone who was dead. There were so many dead that sometimes you could actually feel the grief on the streets, even in 1954. The feeling of sadness that afflicted the country was almost as bad as it had been during the Great Depression.

We heard a car draw up outside the pension and Grottsch went to see if they had our man. A few minutes later he came back looking worried.

'Well,' he said. 'They've got someone. Yes, they've got someone, all right. But if it is Edgard de Boudel then he speaks German better than any Franzi I ever met.'

'Of course he would,' I said. 'He was fluent even when I knew him. His German was better than mine.'

Grottsch shrugged. 'Anyway, he insists he's Kettenacher. Vigee's confronting him with the real Kettenacher's documents now. Did you see Kettenacher's Party ID? The man had Donation stamps going back to 1934. And did you see those duelling scars on his cheek in the photographs?'

I nodded. 'It's true. He was everyone's idea of what a Nazi should look like. Especially now that he's dead.'

'Why do I get the feeling that you weren't a Party member yourself?'

'Does it really matter now? If I was or I wasn't?' I shook my head. 'As far as our new friends are concerned – the French, the Amis, the Tommies – we were all fucking Nazis. So it doesn't matter who was and who wasn't. They look at all those old Leni Riefenstahl movies and who can blame them?'

'There was never a moment, when you believed in Hitler, like the rest of us?'

'Oh yes. There was. For about a month in the summer of 1940. After we licked the French in six weeks. I believed in him then. Who didn't?'

'Yes. That was the best time for me, too.'

After a while we heard raised voices, and a few minutes later Vigee came into the room. He looked cross and out of breath and there was blood on the back of one hand as if he'd hit someone.

'He's not Richard Kettenacher,' he said. "That much is certain. But he swears he's not Edgard de Boudel. So it's up to you now, Gunther.'

I shrugged. 'All right.'

I followed the Frenchman down to the wine cellar where Wenger and Moeller were guarding our prisoner. The photographs the Amis had shown me had been black and white, of course, and blown up after being shot from a distance so that they were a little blurred and grainy. Doubtless the real de Boudel would have gone to great lengths to disguise himself. He would have lost some weight, dyed his hair, grown a moustache perhaps. When I'd been a uniformed policeman in the Twenties I'd arrested many suspects on the basis of a photograph or a police description, but this was the first time I'd been obliged to do it in order to save my own neck.

The man was sitting in a chair. He was wearing handcuffs and his cheeks were red as if he'd been struck several times. He looked about sixty but he was probably younger. In fact I was certain of it. As soon as he saw me the man smiled.

'Bernie Gunther,' he said. 'I never thought I'd be pleased to see you again. Tell this French idiot I'm not the man he's looking for. This Edgar Boudel he keeps asking me about.' He spat on the floor.

'Why don't you tell him yourself?' I said. 'Tell him your real name and then perhaps he'll believe you.'

The man frowned and said nothing.

'Do you recognise this man?' Vigee asked me.

'Yes, I recognise him.'

'And is it him? Is it de Boudel?'